Pacific allies urged to use unmanned spy planes against China challenge
Rowan Callick, Asia-Pacific Editor From:The Australian February 21, 2011 12:00AM
A leading American military expert yesterday urged Australia and its East Asian allies to use unmanned spy planes to help counter the growing challenge from China.
Thomas Mahnken of the US Naval War College also backed the recent proposal by Kokoda Foundation founder Ross Babbage that Canberra buy nuclear submarines.
Regional countries including Australia should, he said, play a more proactive role in gathering and sharing intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance on China with the US.
"If there were a network linking the sensors of all the participants, another confrontation between China and Japan (like that in the South China Sea last year) would produce a unified reaction," Dr Mahnken said.
The growing debate about China's military power steps up a gear today when senior Australian naval officers, led by a rear admiral, will participate with Dr Mahnken and three war college colleagues in a Lowy Institute workshop in Sydney on maritime security in Asia.
About half of Australia's total merchandise trade is shipped through the sea lanes of north Asia.
Dr Mahnken, a former top Pentagon official responsible for drafting the US Quadrennial Defence Review, will lead the discussion that will also include top Australian strategic experts such as Hugh White of the Australian National University and Alan Dupont of the University of Sydney.
He will present a paper called Secrecy and Stratagem: Understanding Chinese Strategic Culture. He told The Australian the US was stepping up its "high-end capabilities" in the western Pacific, such as by sending Global Hawk unmanned surveillance planes to its military base on Guam, which is in the middle of a large upgrade, and by deploying to the region its first-line attack submarines.
Dr Mahnken urged "greater undersea co-operation between Australia, the US and other friendly states in the region, to help strengthen deterrence".
Australia already operates the world's largest conventional submarines, the Collins-class, he said. "They're quite capable, but there are limits."
Nuclear-powered vessels were faster and could stay submerged for longer. "They would allow us to build unprecedented levels of inter-operability with the Royal Australian Navy," he said.
"Such a step would take bold political leadership on both sides of the Pacific but the situation is at the point where it would really pay off."
China's strategic planners talk of co-opting two island chains off the coast of Asia as a basis for maritime defence. But Dr Mahnken said: "We have sovereign territories in that second island chain. The US is a Pacific power, that's part of our identity. And clearly, the Chinese are trying to undermine US influence in the west Pacific, and detach us from our allies and partners.
"We need to be very clear-headed, and understand the Chinese on their own terms, as a predicate for any action on our part."
Source: The Australian
Rowan Callick, Asia-Pacific Editor From:The Australian February 21, 2011 12:00AM
A leading American military expert yesterday urged Australia and its East Asian allies to use unmanned spy planes to help counter the growing challenge from China.
Thomas Mahnken of the US Naval War College also backed the recent proposal by Kokoda Foundation founder Ross Babbage that Canberra buy nuclear submarines.
Regional countries including Australia should, he said, play a more proactive role in gathering and sharing intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance on China with the US.
"If there were a network linking the sensors of all the participants, another confrontation between China and Japan (like that in the South China Sea last year) would produce a unified reaction," Dr Mahnken said.
The growing debate about China's military power steps up a gear today when senior Australian naval officers, led by a rear admiral, will participate with Dr Mahnken and three war college colleagues in a Lowy Institute workshop in Sydney on maritime security in Asia.
About half of Australia's total merchandise trade is shipped through the sea lanes of north Asia.
Dr Mahnken, a former top Pentagon official responsible for drafting the US Quadrennial Defence Review, will lead the discussion that will also include top Australian strategic experts such as Hugh White of the Australian National University and Alan Dupont of the University of Sydney.
He will present a paper called Secrecy and Stratagem: Understanding Chinese Strategic Culture. He told The Australian the US was stepping up its "high-end capabilities" in the western Pacific, such as by sending Global Hawk unmanned surveillance planes to its military base on Guam, which is in the middle of a large upgrade, and by deploying to the region its first-line attack submarines.
Dr Mahnken urged "greater undersea co-operation between Australia, the US and other friendly states in the region, to help strengthen deterrence".
Australia already operates the world's largest conventional submarines, the Collins-class, he said. "They're quite capable, but there are limits."
Nuclear-powered vessels were faster and could stay submerged for longer. "They would allow us to build unprecedented levels of inter-operability with the Royal Australian Navy," he said.
"Such a step would take bold political leadership on both sides of the Pacific but the situation is at the point where it would really pay off."
China's strategic planners talk of co-opting two island chains off the coast of Asia as a basis for maritime defence. But Dr Mahnken said: "We have sovereign territories in that second island chain. The US is a Pacific power, that's part of our identity. And clearly, the Chinese are trying to undermine US influence in the west Pacific, and detach us from our allies and partners.
"We need to be very clear-headed, and understand the Chinese on their own terms, as a predicate for any action on our part."
Source: The Australian
